1. Field of the Invention
The present invention refers to a movable device for collecting and conveying towards downstream working stations a flow of signatures incoming from an upstream format-cutting and bending line applied to rotary printing machines.
2. Background Information
The current rotary printing machines are composed of a plurality of devices mutually placed in series or in parallel in order to carry out the different operations through which a roller of a continuous web of a printing support (for example paper) is transformed into a magazine or the like, divided into suitably printed signatures, stacked and ready for being made into fascicles, to be bound, packaged, etc.
The invention refers to a part of the rotary printing machines that is shown in FIG. 1, which only shows the final part of the process, in which the fascicles have already been printed, cut and bent and appear as a continuous series, in a form in which a fascicle is spaced from the previous one and commonly it can be found in a parallel advancement to one or more fascicles of the same type. This situation is shown in FIG. 1 in a part of the line designated with reference 2, equipped with a set of advancement rollers, which will not be described in detail since they are known, and for conciseness.
Downstream of such station 2, one or a plurality (FIG. 1 shows three of them) of devices 1 are provided that are used for collecting and conveying the signatures produced by the printing machines. Such devices 1 are of the so-called xe2x80x9cspiderxe2x80x9d type, because they are equipped with a plurality of curved blades 4 that uniformly project outside the cylindrical surface of the devices 1: through such blades 4, the devices 1 are adapted to collect the printed matter and to dispense it in batches (signatures) in such a way as to overlap every batch to the previous one with a degree of overlapping established according to the need of forming fascicles and binding downstream. The fascicles are thereby discharged onto suitable transporting means 3 already stacked and partially overlapped for being transported to downstream workings.
These spider-type devices 1, like all the parts of machines of this type, periodically need maintenance and setting operations. For the way in which they are placed in the machines (and that are connected fixed to support risers 9 and able to rotate around their longitudinal axis on fixed connecting pins), in case of maintenance, the operators, that must penetrate inside the printing machine to access to the devices 1, must stop the whole production line 5, also when, like in the case in FIG. 1, there are many devices 1 in series.
Moreover, in case it is necessary to intervene in the part of the machine designed with reference 6, that is in a vertical position immediately upstream of the device 1, it is necessary that the operator, once having stopped the machine, jumps over the device 1 in order to access the area 6, with various personal dangers and dangers of damaging the device 1 itself.
One of the objects of the present invention is solving the above prior-art problems, by providing a spider-type device in which it is possible to access maintenance and setting operations without having to stop the whole printing machine to which it is connected.
A further object of the present invention is providing a spider-type device of the above-mentioned type that can be taken out of the printing machine through a simple operation that requires a minimum effort by the operator, even if the weight of such spider-type device is high.
A further object of the present invention is providing a spider-type device of the above-mentioned type that can be completely taken out of the printing machine in such a way as to comfortably access also to parts of the machine that are immediately upstream thereof, and in such a way that it can be exactly repositioned in the same working position in which it was placed upon its previous removal.
The above and other objects and advantages of the invention, as will appear from the following description, are obtained by a spider-type device as claimed in claim 1. Preferred embodiments and non-trivial variations of the present invention are claimed in the dependent claims.